The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) has championed in implementing and operationalizing their warning and situational-awareness platform, hosted at www.dmhwarnings.gov.mm
Workshop Intro
To discuss the next steps and bring closure to the CAP on a Map project, a dissemination workshop was held in Naypyitaw (02 September 2016). The workshop was held at the Hotel Royal ACE. The participants were Senior Management of their respective Organizations. The objective of the workshop was to:
- share the success of DMH implementation
- cease the opportunity to get the buy in from the other Stakeholders.
The Alerting and Response Organizations can make use of the SAMBRO warning and situational-awareness platform, readily available for them to integrate their warning needs. Media was also invited to the event (DOWNLOAD the Media Brief).
The Myanmar Dissemination Workshop REPORT provides a summary of the overall workshop discussions and presentations.
Some of the noteworthy discussions were around:
- Officially registering the Myanmar RSS Feed with WMO
- DMH to support training of other Stakeholders in Myanmar
- National CAP Working Group
1. Officially Registering the CAP Feed
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) measures a Member State or any Alerting Authority to have officially implemented CAP, if there is an entry for a CAP RSS/Atom in the WMO Register of Alerting Authorities. Although the Myanmar warning and situational platform is offering a RSS Feed, the Myanmar (CAP OID 2.49.0.0.104.0) is yet to register their RSS Feed. DMH has agreed to register the feed in the WMO Register of Alerting Authorities, soon. Dr. Hrinnei Thiam, Director General DMH, is the Permanent Representative to WMO. She is the designated Editor of the WMO Register and will need to edit the repository introducing the DMH CAP RSS Feed.
2. Go forth with Confidence, Expand CAP
Having seen and recognized the DMH achievements to date, the Stakeholders expressed interest in receiving training on CAP and gaining access to SAMBRO. Training had been given to them in several occasions but never made anything of it then. Now that the upper management has seen the system they are keen in adopting. There were discussions as to how they may proceed. DMH has generously offered to train them but asked that they officially invite them through their Departments.
DMH was asking whether the project could help conduct any future training in Myanmar. AIT offered to provide assistance, if required, using alternative funds to send a resource person to Naypyitaw. My reaction was different – Myanmar has bee trained and have acquired the skill in both CAP and SAMBRO. Myanmar must leap with faith and taken on the challenge on their own. From a sustainable development lens we, want Myanmar to be independent in developing their own systems It is natural to encounter some difficulties, at the beginning, and many lessons will be learned. Adapting to those challenges is the only way to master it; i.e. “learning by doing”. We are certainly available to support online and remotely.
The aim of the CAP on a Map project was to build capacity within, Myanmar; specifically, the DMH on implementing and maintaining the upkeep of the the Sahana Cross-Agency Situational-Awareness platform; namely, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) -enabled Sahana Alerting and Messaging Broker.The DMH staff may not be perfect but they are diligent with continued testing and upgrading the implementation. Myanmar now has in-house experience to expand CAP and Situational-Awareness in Myanmar.
3. Foster a National CAP-MM Working Group
National Disaster Management Committee (NDMC) is spearheaded by the Vice President of Myanmar. DMH is a member of the NDMC along with several other Stakeholders. NDMC has several Subcommittees (SCs). It was identified, at the workshop, that the CAP-MM Working Group might best fall within the charter of the NDMC Information-SC. The NDMC Information-SC might consider appointing DMH as the CAP-MM Custodian. Thereby, any CAP-MM policy and procedures would be managed by DMH. A representative from DMH should serve as the CAP-MM Manager (or CAP-MM Steward) with the responsibilities of managing the changes relating to CAP-MM and publicizing the CAP policies and procedures.
DOWNLOAD the Myanmar Dissemination Workshop REPORT
Conclusion
The overall consensus is that the workshop had met its objectives with making the Stakeholders aware of the new changes to DMH warnings with the adoption of CAP and the SAMBRO system as well as providing an opportunity for the Stakeholders debate and plan a way forward. While some issues remain unsolved and other issues that are in the working, in general DMH has now operationalized a CAP-enabled warning dissemination and situational awareness platform in Myanmar.